Everyone Wants Oregon Coach Chip Kelly — Leading Off

January 4, 2013

Leading Off

By LYNN ZINSER

Now that Oregon has won its Fiesta Bowl game, everyone’s retinas have recovered from encountering the Ducks’ latest uniform and the crowd in Arizona has finally stopped chanting, “We want Chip,” the frenzy can truly begin. In fact, by the time you finish Leading Off, Ducks Coach Chip Kelly might have been hired by the Eagles. Or the Browns. Or the Bills. Even the Chiefs might stop their fire-breathing pursuit of Andy Reid and hire Kelly instead. Listen hard enough and you may even hear that the Lakers believe he can bring out the best in Kobe Bryant. Yes, Kelly is hot, eyebrow-searing hot.

Those chants had barely faded when Kelly made it known that his N.F.L. pursuers better get moving. Because he knows he will never be hotter. And he would like the bagloads of money delivered to his door before everyone realizes college coaches are unlikely immediate saviors in the N.F.L., that the skills do not automatically translate. Yes, Jim Harbaugh has done rather well for himself in San Francisco — but he had more than a passing familiarity with the N.F.L. as a longtime quarterback. Pete Carroll needed a few failed tries before hitting the right note in Seattle. The jury’s still not even thinking about ruling on Greg Schiano at Tampa Bay. And remember how Nick Saban totally resurrected the Dolphins when he was Chip-Kelly-hot out of L.S.U.? Well, the Dolphins don’t either.

But hey, everybody wants Chip Kelly — we have the chanting to prove it — because everyone believes he will create touchdown-palooza anywhere he goes. He certainly got the proper send-off from Oregon with the victory over Kansas State Thursday night, Stewart Mandel writes on SI.com, which featured the rare spectacle of a 1-point safety. Oregon is prereeling over his impending departure, with John Canzano writing in The Oregonian that the program has to remember it was never all about one guy. And Kelly will spend Friday hopping from job interview to job interview.

This is all standard operating procedure when there are N.F.L. jobs open and owners have itchy A.T.M. fingers. Logic flies out the window during the frenzy. Why else would teams be elbowing one another out of the way for the right to inherit the architect of the Eagles’ complete flameout? Jason Whitlock of Foxsports.com, for one, cannot understand the Chiefs’ leading the frantic pursuit of Reid. Sam Mellinger writes in The Kansas City Star that this is Clark Hunt’s desire to put his stamp on the Chiefs, and there is no accounting for his stamping ability.

Oregon Coach Chip Kelly celebrated the Ducks' 35-17 win over Kansas State on Thursday in the Fiesta Bowl.

Doug Pensinger / Getty Images

It is infectious, though, this feeling that one hire will change everything. And while Bill O’Brien reportedly stepped out of the whirlwind and decided to stay at Penn State, the craziness will whip up again for Saban as soon as the B.C.S. title game is over because his nondenial denials haven’t quieted anything, writes Dennis Dodd on CBSSports.com.

The market for former football players is hot, too, with the report from SI.com’s Richard Deitsch that the retiring linebacker Ray Lewis will join ESPN as an analyst. Not only is ESPN not reporting this news, it also has no comment on it. Priceless.

There are plenty of other silly stories making the rounds, including a baseball-worthy moment in the N.B.A.: San Antonio’s Stephen Jackson injuring himself by stepping on the foot of a courtside waitress at Madison Square Garden. Even better, she was serving Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on the sideline.

There are sobering stories, too, including soccer’s being ransacked by racism. It took Kevin-Prince Boateng’s leading a walkout of a Milan game to put a spotlight on this issue, with the sport’s leadership so successfully avoiding it that it is up to the players to preserve their own dignity, writes Leander Schaerlaeckens on Foxsports.com.

Fortunately, there is nothing that socially deplorable in the football coaching frenzy. No, that’s just standard issue silliness.